The Break
by WritingFumarole
Summary: The end of Jude and Connor's conversation in episode 3.17 and how their lives move forward afterwards.
1. Prologue

AN: This is my first story published on FanFiction, but I've lurked here for a few years now. Jonnor is the main reason I watch the Fosters, but I realized that Jude and Connor are largely characterized by there relationship with each other, so I wanted to explore them beyond that. The story starts during episode 3.17 (Sixteen) and everything that happened before that is the same as the show, but after will be my story. Finally, I do not own the Fosters in any way shape or form; the show belongs to Freeform and Peter Paige and Bradley Bredeweg.

* * *

"Ok, well what do you want to do? Do you want to break up?"

"Do you?"

The question hung in the air for what felt like eternity as Connor processed what was going on.

"No!" He suddenly shouted, surprising Jude as well as himself. "Of, of course I don't, but if that's what you want…"

"I don't know what I want; that's the problem," Jude picked where as Connor's voice trailed off.

Inwardly, Connor groaned. "This is why-"

"This is why what?" Jude interrupted with anger in his tone.

"Why are you yelling? What did I do?"

"I saw you roll your eyes at me. Now finish that sentence 'this is why' what?"

"This is why being your boyfriend is so hard. You never know what you want, and when you do, you get mad at me when I disagree," Connor retorted, his voice slowly getting louder and louder.

"Really, like whe-" Jude started but Connor just kept on speaking.

"Like when you wanted to keep our relationship a secret and when you didn't want to be called gay, even though you are; even though _we_ are. And I stood by you the whole time. And do you know what I just realized? That I'm the only one who gives in this relationship. I would do anything for you, because you're still my best friend and my boyfriend."

Connor paused to take a breath, but Jude started talking almost as soon as Connor had stopped.

"Me? How about you? Sure I didn't want to be labeled, but I thought you got that. And you're the one who was too scared to come out and even dated a girl to try and convince your dad that you were straight even though _your_ gay. And speaking of your Dad, he gets it now. He really does. You did not have to move to LA, but you did any way. And you left me here. Alone. As soon as we both became comfortable being a couple together in public, you left."

"So that's what this is about."

"Of course that's what this is about."

By this time, Connor had calmed himself down and it looked as if Jude had too. Jude's words stung, but he had to admit that they weren't wrong. He did leave Jude, but he did it for his own wellbeing and if Jude didn't get that, then maybe something did have to change.

"Maybe we should take a break." Connor said, finally breaking the silence that had grown between them.

"You mean you want to break up?" Jude asked.

"No, I mean maybe we need to focus on ourselves and what we want and need for awhile. And if we meet someone new in that time, then yeah, maybe we will break up, but not right now."

"Ok…" Connor could tell that Jude was hesitant, so he kept going.

"We're clearly not in the same place right now, mentally or physically," he joke, eliciting a small chuckle from Jude, "but I hope with some time we can be again."

"We can still talk to each other though, right?" Jude questioned, sounding concerned.

"Obviously," Connor smiled, happy that Jude seemed to be taking it so well. "But you're right, we do talk all the time right now without really talking, so let's try less meaningless texts and actual conversation, ok?"

"Ok."

"Good. I'll talk to you later, Jude, ok?"

"Ok."


	2. UpdateRant

First off, thank you to everyone who read the prologue. As I said in the AN, this is my first published story and I'm so grateful for all of your responses. Next, a little insight into my process. I try to write a chapter each weekend and then edit them Tuesday/Wednesday to post on Wednesday. Chapter 1 is almost done (it just needs to be edited after I made some structural changes), but it's definitely not as far along as I had hoped it would be at this time, and part of that is because of this week's episode which finally clarified a lot of thoughts and feelings I had about the show, which leads me in to part two: my rant.

I'd like to start by saying I honestly love the Fosters and what the show had meant to the LGBTQ+ and foster kids communities. As a gay man, Jude and Connor's depictions on the show have been instrumental in helping me become who I am today; they gave television voices and faces that are rarely seen. That being said, I strongly disagree with the direction the writing has taken recently and Jude's characterization as a whole over the course of the show.

Like many fans, I am super upset that they broke up Jonnor and Gavin Macintosh left the show, which is confirmed from a sneak peek of next week's show as well as tweets by both Gavin and EP Joanna Johnson. There has also been a lot of speculation as to why Gavin left, but as there is no official word on that, I won't speak to it. What I will speak to is why the break up is damaging from both a community and a narrative/characterization standpoint.

Jonnor, as the youngest on screen gay couple in TV history, was obviously super important to LGBTQ+ community. Even more than that, Jude was portrayed as a character may gay or questioning middle and high schoolers could connect to. He wasn't always completely sure of himself or his feelings. He wasn't overly flamboyant or terrified in the closet. He was somewhere in the middle, which not a common depiction of gay youth in television, but one that resonated with me and, I'm sure, a lot of other you gay kids. What's more, is that he got to live the gay teen fantasy: being the quiet, shy, closeted gay kid who falls in love with a jock and/or his best friend (luckily both in this case), and that guy also happens to be gay, and also likes him back. This is the sort of stuff that almost never happens in real life, even though we all wish it would. Predictably, their relationship had a rocky beginning, but then with fairly little warning, it stopped. And it stopped for no better reason than long distance is hard. While that's true, it's also not original and had better message to give beyond that. Connor moved away and they couldn't make it work. The fantasy is dead and a lie, which is an odd story to tell for a show about hope and perseverance, and potentially devastating to the community they are trying to appeal to and support.

Narratively speaking, the way they handled Jonnor, and Jude for that matter, doesn't make much sense either. With Jude, he doesn't seem to exist on the show without Callie or Connor, and if the sneak peak is anything to go by, Connor will be replaced by Jack. At the beginning of the show, Jude had two individualized plot lines going for him: his academic struggles and his questioning of his sexuality. The former lasted until he took the math test that Lena fixed for him and the second became so tied up in the Jonnor storyline that it no longer was his own and then was solved by the LGBT Prom episode. While showing his connections to other characters isn't inherently bad, over the course of the show, every other character has had long and lasting individual story lines: Stef with her breast cancer, Lena with her pregnancy and miscarriage, Brandon with his band, Callie with Fost and Found, Marianna with her dance group, Jesus with wrestling, and even Mike with his alcoholism. This may be just be selective bias, but as far as I can tell, Jude has had nothing like any of those. In fact, other than maybe Mike, Jude has been absent from the most episodes out of the main cast. To have Jude be such a one-dimensional character is disappointing for the LGBTQ+ community given how important he is to them.

With Jonnor, it's a little different. Their relation was shown as something relatively innocent and normal with the usual ups and downs of young love. But it was also nuanced and dealt with issues that gay couples face that straight couples their age usually don't even think twice about. Issues like labels and parental reaction and public intimacy were all tackled in what I thought was a very productive and meaningful way. And then it ended because of a dick pic and long distance. That was not the way Jonnor was supposed to end. Had they done it differently, as in actually showing them grow apart, I would have probably been ok with it, but that's not what they did. Instead, they had Connor move away, make one bad judgement call and Jude not react in a productive way until the shoved what should have been episodes worth of development into one Skype call with a cliffhanger ending. And then they didn't even address it in the next episode, because once again, Jude was missing entirely. Also, in ending Jonnor, they lost a lot of interesting narrative space to explore, namely Connor's dad. Instead, they had Adam "get it" as Connor is leaving, but we didn't get to see that interaction and it made Connor look like the bad guy. In short, the Fosters had a lot of potential development narratively for a couple that was extremely important to an often marginalized and stereotyped community and they threw it away, which is why I'm so upset about recent events on the show.

Anyway, sorry for the rant and if it was hard to follow; it was more word vomit than anything else. This may not be the right place to post this, but I needed to get it off my chest and I also felt like I needed to explain my posting schedule and why I've broken it so quickly. If you've made it this far, thank you for reading and if you want to have an actual discussion about what I've written here feel free to PM me or email me at gmail with the handle writingfumarole and I'll do my best to respond in a timely manner. Hopefully Chapter 1 will be up Thursday or Friday, but if not I'll probably just postpone it to Wednesday to keep the regular schedule.

TL;DR: I try to post Wednesday. Recent events on the show have made me mad as a fan, a writer, and a member of the LGBTQ+ community. Chapter 1 will be up Thursday, Friday, or next Wednesday.


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